Mar
11

A blast from the past

The other day I came across an old blog post I had written for Functional Web about the trend towards responsive design.  What I find amazing is that only 3 days ago I had to have a discussion about the topic of screen resolution and responsive design with a client and her soon to be “previous” web designer.  So here it is again, back from the dead with a bit of update:

Screen resolution is gaining has gained a range:  from 320px (cell phone) to 2400px or even higher. Users will no longer just browse the web with desktop computers. Users are beginning to use mobile phones, smaller note books, and all kinds of tablets to access the web. So the traditional fixed width design is dead in water now. Web design needs to adapt. The layout needs to be adjusted for specific displays resolutions and devices.

Below is the main structure of a layout that can easily do that. You got the “container” that wraps the “header”, “content”, “sidebar”, and “footer” together.

<div id=”container”>
<header id=”header”>
<menu>
<ul id=”main-nav”>
<li><a href=”#”>Home</a></li>
</ul>
</menu>
</header>
<div id=”content”>
<article>
blog post
</article>
</div>
<aside id=”sidebar”>
<section>
widget
</section>
</aside>
<footer id=”footer”>
footer
</footer>
</div>

We will be building build the css based on a flexible grid and within that grid we’ll define the sizing of things for each device.

At the end of the day, this is a brand new and it is still mighty painful transition but more than ever necessary.

March 11th, 2013 by administrator | Type: Standard
Filed Under: HTML, Software, Web sites No comments yet
Dec
11

Cow-Path Web site Navigation

We’ve all heard the experts and read the articles about the best way to set up your web’s information design.  Graphics, detailed menus, right navigation, left navigation, heat maps, intuitive, topical, functional  – STOP STOP STOP

I propose Cow-Path navigation design.  Behnam Ataee, CTO of Dream Warrior Group, Inc. shows his expertise every day when designing and implementing the information design on web sites from The Arts to e-commerce.  He consults with clients about their goals, researches and then uses his knowledge of user behavior to design the best possible initial site navigation.

But is that enough?  I say “It’s the ideal and necessary start but we can’t stop there.”    This is where observation and analytics come in to the picture.  Now that we have a logical and amazing looking navigation, we need to see what happens .  Because (and I know this is a shock), people don’t always act logically.  As marketers and developers, we need to see what is happening – figure out why and if we can and adopt the navigation schema to behavior.

Certainly, we still want to design a site that funnels folks to the desired end…but they may have a better way to get there. Or, it may not be better but it was they want….give them what they want.

As I was discussing this with our new friend and client, John Olchak from The San Diego Repertory Theatre, he likened it to landscape designers who don’t put in the concrete sidewalks until they see where people are making their own paths.  Smart.  I likened this back to my college days at UWSP.  Outside the Science and Natural Resources building there were signs saying ‘Don’t make cow-paths!” because the student body was forever cutting corners and tearing up the grass (I confess to nothing).

So, with Web site navigation I say “Let’s embrace the cow-paths”.  Check out your analytics…how are people getting to your desired goal/conversion?  Can we make that navigation easier and more enticing for others?   So….don ‘t ever pour concrete on your web site.  Leave the navigation open to change to match the cow-path or add a second path.  Keep it simple, clean and give the visitors what they want.

Now….are your visitors not converting or choosing to make a path to your goal page?  That’s another blog and conversation about goals, page content and ease of conversion.  We’ll talk soon.

Mooo

LaMae Weber, CEO, DWG

December 11th, 2012 by administrator | Type: Standard
Filed Under: Information Design, Online Marketing, Web sites No comments yet
Aug
31

The new Google Tablet – Apple’s new rival?

Google announced the debut of its new tablet the Nexus 7 and could finally be the Apple iPad contender we’ve been waiting for. Apple, which has totally dominated the market thus far, is extremely appealing and a beauty to be hold, however the Nexus 7 could soon be taking the spotlight. The reason? This 7-inch tablet, the first on the market with Jelly Bean (Android 4.1) will start at $199 for an 8GB of memory and up to $249 for a 16GB. The majority of other tablets on the market, at present, go for double that for half the memory.

Compared to the competition, like Amazon.com’s Kindle Fire, affordability isn’t an entirely new concept. However, while the Fire has been somewhat successful for Amazon, it hasn’t made any relevant impact on iPad because of its limitations and app platform. Not running on any standard forms of Android makes it very difficult for app developers to create anything for it- another victory for the Google Nexus 7.

There is also the Samsung Galaxy Tablet – in spite of all the legal problems, it is by far the most popular Android Tablet today. It provides nearly all the features that you could get on an iPad, at a lower cost. However it is not nearly as low as the Nexus 7. The Samsung market share is clearly the first arena that Google’s product is going to impact, but watch out iPad, because Google is coming for you next.

So let’s recap:

1. It’s cheap.

2. It’s an Android.

3. The price is right and will attract app developers.

Any questions?

August 31st, 2012 by administrator | Type: Standard
Filed Under: Software No comments yet
Aug
21

Twitter gets 2 thumbs up

About a month ago, Twitter released an update to its search in order to allow companies to connect with followers more readily, and listen to their input.

Initial update was the auto-complete feature, and “people you follow” results for searches for a simplified pursuit of hashtags.

Even though these new features happen to be pretty drastic improvement for navigating through the universe of tweets, we have also noticed some impressive improvement to the search algorithm itself.

The quality of the results have been steadily improving, and in a recent event  where we manned the social media station, we were pleasantly surprised with the ease with which the audience was tagging along with our hashtags.

Two thumbs up for Twitter, for this change …

August 21st, 2012 by administrator | Type: Standard
Filed Under: Software No comments yet
Jun
02

Responsive Vs. responsive

For the better part of my career on the web, I have been a strong proponent of  creating UX scenarios and utilizing a set of  static templates to accommodate the majority of viewing options.  With the rapidly expanding utilization of mobile devices for web viewing, it is no longer possible to introduce various UI’s after the launch, which leaves us with the flexible grid and the hair bending initial discussions with the customer.

As wonderful and time saving as a fluid or a semi-fluid design is once the coding process begins, it introduces as many difficulties up front during the initial design reviews with the customer. Now, instead of  2 mockups & 3 to 5 wire frames, you need to start with 6 to 8 mockups & a dozen wire frames, which means exponentially more time spent on discussions, and Q&A.

So based on this experience, we have now modified our time to completions of the projects by an additional 20% to reflect the new reality of responsive design discussion.  I would love to hear from anyone else, and how their quotes and time lines have had to be fiddled with …

 

June 2nd, 2012 by administrator | Type: Standard
Filed Under: Software No comments yet
May
06

What’s up with the “New iPad”?

The Retina display on the iPad 3 is allows for a crisper more detailed screen. Colors are more vibrant and text is noticeably clearer. It has 4 times more pixels than the iPad 2 and a million more than an HDTV. The 5-megapixel iSight camera features a backside illumination sensor that captures great-looking pictures whether by sunlight or candlelight.

http://www.apple.com/ipad/features/

May 6th, 2012 by administrator | Type: Standard
Filed Under: Hardware No comments yet
Apr
08

Pinterest

We have been looking at the evolution of Pinterest with “interest” in the last 9 months, and after the announcement by President Obama’s campaign regarding their use of Pinterest, we are even more enthusiastic.  Here are some of the things you can do to help you with Pinterest:

  1. Finding the audience. Search Pinterest before diving in -  make sure your target market is there and using the service. Over 95% of the pinners are Female.  Instead of looking for the audience directly, look for influencers that can reach your audience.  Remember Pinterst is not in a vacuum,  those influencers in Pinterest also tend to Tweet and FaceBook and have many followers and friends.
  2. Making a Plan. Once you have decided that Pinterest is for you, you need to make sure you’re pinning addresses your business goals. Be focused and flexible and adapt. Focus traffic and brand awareness, and create your boards accordingly.  Create a rule based scenario for your pinning and make sure everyone in your organization follows it.
  3. Building a message. The images you pin or repin tell a heck of a lot about you, as well as the comments that you post.  For the most part, your images will have to stand on their own and represent you, so ewhen you are not sure that an image by itself will do the job, make sure there is some text on it to provide clarity.
  4. Creating Boards. Whilel focusing on your message, create minimum of three boards that focus on your target audience’s experience, your brand, and the mindset for audience engagement. It would be quite easy to create an alternate board for each goal and then compare results, and finally follow the path that yields the best results.  Don’t be afraid of changing things up.
  5. Building popularity. At the very beginning, you may choose to put up what you may find interesting, but the beauty of Pinterest is that quickly you will realize whether or not others agree with you. If you are not getting a large crowd to find your images intersting, then it is time to adjust and quickly.  Look at what your audience finds intersting and follow suit.  Your Boards should be intersting and motivate others to re-pin your images, so just putting up the pictures of your product will not do the job.
  6. Becoming Pinnable. Take a look at your site through the lense of Pinterest.  Is your site really pinnable?  Are there sufficient compelling images on your site to make it a popular destination.  Consider adding images to your site based on your plan, and under the same guideline by which you create boards.
  7. Engaging in Pinterest. If you expect folks to be interested on your images, you really need to show interest on theirs.  Most pinners actively support other pinners.  This support may easily extend to your brand and products if you play your cards right. Bringing in others to pin with you in some of your boards is another greate way of engaging the community, and extending your base.  Make sure everyone you bring in understands and is willing to follow your guidelines.
  8. Developing Campaigns. Make sure you incorporate Pinterest into your promotions.  This can be as effective as your facebook or twitter promotions, and should be part of your over all promotion plan.

 –a compilation by Behnam Ataee of Dream Warrior Group

April 8th, 2012 by administrator | Type: Standard
Filed Under: Social Marketing No comments yet
Mar
29

iPad, Nook, Kindle…Oi Vey

The iPad 2, Kindle Fire, and Nook Color are the main tablets on the market. You might be asking yourself “which should I choose?” It’s mostly a question of what you want to use your tablet for. The iPad offers iTunes, which includes “millions of songs, TV shows, movies and books”. The Kindle Fire comes equipped with Amazon, along with a collection of millions of TV shows, movies, and books. The Nook Color offers mainly the same thing as the Kindle Fire, except it’s linked with Barnes & Noble’s bookstore. The Kindle Fire and Nook Color cannot compete with the iPad’s huge amount of apps or its amount of storage (64GB). However, the iPad’s price increases as its amount of storage does.

To many consumers, the price differential makes up for the apps and storage differentials. The Kindle Fire is priced at $199, Nook Color is priced at $199, and the Apple iPad is $499-$829. Both the Kindle and Nook have a screen size of 7 inches. The iPad has a screen size of 9.7 inches. The specs are very similar between the Kindle and Nook, except the Nook offers expandable storage of up to 32GB in micro SD card slots. If the main purpose you’re looking for in a tablet is reading books, it boils down to company preference between Amazon, Barnes & Noble, and iTunes. If you’re looking for a lot of applications and more storage, then the iPad may be for you..

The iPad 2 includes two cameras for FaceTime and HD video. It has 10 hours of battery life. It’s extremely thin at only 0.34 inches and weighs only 1.33 pounds. The Kindle Fire doesn’t include cameras. It has 8 hours of battery life while reading, and 7.5 of video playback. It is 0.45 inches thick and weighs only 14.6 ounces. The Nook Color doesn’t include cameras. It has 8 hours of battery life. Its 0.48 inches thick and weighs only 15..8 ounces.

The Kindle Fire has 8GB of on-device storage, 6GB is available for user content. The Nook Color also has 8GB of on-device storage. Both use Android operating systems. The iPad 2 has 16-64GB of on-device storage. It uses iOS for an operating system. The iPad 2 comes equipped with Bluetooth while the Kindle Fire and Nook Color do not. The iPad app store has 90,000 iPad apps. The Kindle Fire app store has 16,638. The Nook Color app store has 729..

http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,2817,2393737,00.asp
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/11/14/kindle-fire-vs-ipad-2-how_n_1092228.html
http://www.apple.com/ipad/features/
http://www.barnesandnoble.com/p/nook-color-barnes-noble/1100437663#nook-commentary-features-1
http://www.amazon.com/Kindle-Fire-Amazon-Tablet/dp/B0051VVOB2

March 29th, 2012 by administrator | Type: Standard
Filed Under: Hardware No comments yet
Feb
10

HTML 5 Tips & Tricks

 

 

You don’t have to wrap your attributes in quotation marks if you don’t want to you.  If you prefer a more structured document, by all means, stick with the quotes, otherwise ditch them.

<p class=someClass id=someId>Paragraph goes here.
or
<P class=”someClass” id=”someId”>Paragraph goes here.
It is all the same.

 

February 10th, 2012 by administrator | Type: Standard
Filed Under: HTML No comments yet